PINNATED-GROUSE SHOOTING. t>3 



cultivated, you may look for them in the flax 

 stubbles, as they are some of their most favorite 

 resorts. Another good place to beat, whenever 

 you see one, is a bean-patch. The navy bean is 

 a good deal cultivated in Illinois and Iowa, and 

 the grouse resort to the patches. About nine or 

 ten o'clock, when the sun has got high and the 

 morning hot, the grouse leave the stubbles and 

 bean-patches, and walk into the long prairie-grass 

 or into the corn. On such days, in clear weather, 

 at that season of the year, it is best to give over 

 shooting about ten o'clock, and lie by until late in 

 the afternoon, when you may pursue your sport 

 again with prospects of success, arid fill up your 

 bag. To continue after the grouse in the middle 

 of the day is me*ely to distress your dogs and to 

 fatigue yourself for nothing. There is no scent, 

 and the grouse will not lie in the open prairie. 

 But on damp, cloudy days the ease is altogether 

 different. The birds then remain in the stubbles 

 all day, unless flushed and driven into the corn ; 

 the dogs can work and scent better ; and under 

 these overcast skies are the best and most glo- 

 rious days of the grouse-shooter in the early part 

 of the season. Later in the fall and at the be- 

 ginning of winter the habit of the grouse is 



